Reflections in a Golden Eye

by Carson McCullers

  Major Langdon was greatly shaken. He stood in the corner of Alison's room for a long time and watched them pack. He dared not open his mouth. After a long time, when all that she had said had soaked into his mind and he was forced to acknowledge to himself that she was crazy, he took her nail scissors and the fire tongs out of the room. Then he went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey. He cried and sucked the salty tears from his wet mustache. Not only did he grieve for Alison's sake, but he felt ashamed, as though this were a reflection on his own respectability. The more he drank the more his misfortune seemed to him incomprehensible. Once he rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and called out in the silent kitchen with a questioning roar of supplication:

  'God? O God ?'

  Again he banged his head on the table until a knot came out on his forehead. By six thirty in the morning he had finished more than a quart of whiskey. He took a shower, dressed, and telephoned Alison's doctor, who was a Colonel in the medical corps and the Major's own friend. Later another doctor was called in and they struck matches in front of Alison's nose and asked her various questions. It was during this examination that the Major had picked up the towel from the rack in her bathroom and put it over his arm. It gave him the look of being prepared for any emergency and was somehow a comfort to him. Before leaving, the Colonel talked for a long while, using the word 'psychology' many times, and the Major nodded dumbly at the end of every sentence. The doctor finished by advising that she be sent to a sanatorium as soon as possible.

  'But look here,' the Major said helplessly. 'No strait jacket or any place like that. You understand where she can play the phonograph comfortable. You know what I mean.'

  Within two days a place in Virginia had been chosen. Due to hurry the institution had been selected more because of the price (it was astonishingly expensive) than for the therapeutic reputation. Alison only listened bitterly when the plans were told to her. Anacleto, of course, was going also. A few days later the three of them left on the train.

  This establishment in Virginia catered to patients who were both physically and mentally ill. And the diseases that attack the body and the brain simultaneously are of a special land. There were a number of old gentlemen who floundered about in a state of total confusion and had to keep a close watch on their unwieldy legs. There were a few lady morphinists and any number of rich young liquor heads. But the place had a pretty terrace where tea was served in the afternoon, the gardens were well kept, and the rooms furnished luxuriously; the Major was satisfied and rather proud that he could afford it.

  Alison, however, made no comment just at first. Indeed she did not speak at all to her husband until they sat down to dinner that night. As an exception, on the evening of her arrival she was to dine downstairs, but beginning with the next morning she was to rest in bed until the condition of her heart improved. At their table there were candles and hothouse roses. The service and the table linen were of the best quality.

  Alison, however, seemed not to observe these niceties. On sitting down to the table she took in the room with one long, wandering gaze. Her eyes, dark and shrewd as always, examined the occupants at all the other tables. Then finally she spoke quietly and with bitter relish:

  'My God, what a choice crew!'

  Major Langdon was never to forget that dinner, for it was the last time he was with his wife. He left very early the next morning and stopped off to spend the night in Pinehurst where he had an old polo friend. Then, when he returned to the post a telegram was waiting for him. On the second night of her stay there Alison had had a heart attack and died.

  This autumn Captain Penderton was thirty five years old. Despite his comparative youth he was soon to wear the maple leaves of a Major; and in the army, where promotion is largely contingent on seniority, this premature advancement was a marked tribute to his ability. The Captain had worked hard and his mind was brilliant from a military point of view it was the opinion of many officers, including the Captain himself, that he would one day be a high ranking General. Nevertheless, Captain Penderton showed the strain of his long efforts. This autumn, especially during the past few weeks, he seemed to have aged disproportionately. There were bruise like circles beneath his eyes and his complexion was of a yellow, mottled color. His teeth had begun to trouble him considerably. The dentist told him that two of the lower molars would have to be extracted and some bridgework put in, but the Captain kept deferring this operation, as he felt he did not have the time to spare. The Captain's face was habitually tense and a tic had developed in the muscles of his left eye. This spasmodic twitching of the eyelid gave to his drawn face a strangely paralyzed expression.

  He was in a constant state of repressed agitation. His preoccupation with the soldier grew in him like a disease. As in cancer, when the cells unaccountably rebel and begin the insidious self multiplication that will ultimately destroy the body, so in his mind did the thoughts of the soldier grow out of all proportion to their normal sphere.

  Sometimes with dismay he made a wondering resume of the steps that had brought about this condition beginning with the carelessly spilt coffee on a new pair of trousers, and continuing with the clearing of the woods, the encounter after the ride on Firebird, and the brief meetings on the streets of the post. How his annoyance could have grown to hate, and the hate to this diseased obsession, the Captain could not logically understand.

  A peculiar reverie had taken hold of him. As he always had been keenly ambitious, he had often amused himself by anticipating his promotions far in advance. Thus, when he was still a young West Pointer the name and the title 'Colonel Weldon Penderton' had to him a familiar and pleasing sound. And during the past summer of this year he had imagined himself as a Corps Area Commander of great brilliance and power. Sometimes he had even whispered the words 'Major General Penderton' aloud to himself and it seemed to him he should have been born to the title, so well did the sound of it fit with his name. But now during the past weeks this idle dream had strangely reversed itself. One night or rather it was one thirty in the morning he had sat at his desk in a trauma of fatigue. Suddenly in the silent room three words had come unbidden to his tongue: 'Private Weldon Penderton.' And these words, with the associations they engendered, aroused in the Captain a perverse feeling of relief and satisfaction. Instead of dreaming of honor and rank, he now experienced a subtle pleasure in imagining himself as an enlisted man. In these phantasies he saw himself as a youth, a twin almost of the soldier whom he hated with a young, easy body that even the cheap uniform of a common soldier could not make ungraceful, with thick glossy hair and round eyes unshadowed by study and strain. The image of Private Williams wove itself through all these day dreams. And the background of all this was the barracks: the hubbub of young male voices, the genial loafing in the sun, the irresponsible shenanigans of camaraderie.

  Captain Penderton had formed the habit of walking each afternoon before the quadrangle where Private Williams was quartered. Usually he saw the soldier sitting alone on the same bench. Walking on the sidewalk the Captain would pass within two yards of the soldier, and at his approach Private Williams would get up reluctantly and give a lazy salute. The days were growing short, and at this time in the late afternoon a hint of darkness was already in the air. For a brief period after sunset there was in the atmosphere a misty lavender glow.

  The Captain on passing always looked full into the soldier's face and slowed his footsteps. He knew that the soldier must now realize that these afternoon walks were made on his account. It even occurred to the Captain to wonder why the soldier did not evade him and go elsewhere at this time. The fact that the soldier clung to his habit gave to these daily contacts a flavor of assignation that filled the Captain with excitement. After he had passed the soldier he had to suppress a craving to turn around, and as he walked away he felt his heart swell with a wild, nostalgic sadness which he could not control.

  At the Captain's house there were a few changes. Major Langdon
had attached himself to the Pendertons like a third member of the family, and this state of affairs was agreeable both to the Captain and Leonora. The Major was left quite stunned and helpless by the death of his wife. Even physically there was a difference in him. His jovial poise had deserted him, and when the three of them were sitting before the fire in the evening, he seemed to want to get himself into the most hobbledehoy and uncomfortable positions possible. He would twist his legs around each other like a contortionist or hike up one heavy shoulder while he mashed his ear. His thoughts and his words now centered entirely on Alison and the part of his life that had now come so abruptly to an end. He was inclined to make doleful platitudes concerning God, the soul, suffering, and death subjects the mention of which would hitherto have made his tongue grow thick and awkward with embarrassment. Leonora looked after him, fed him excellent dinners, and listened to any mournful observations he might have to make.

  'If only Anacleto would come back,' he said often.

  For Anacleto had left the sanatorium the morning after Alison had died and no one had heard of him since. He had repacked the luggage and put all of her things in order. Then he had simply disappeared. To replace him Leonora had hired for the Major one of Susie's brothers who could cook. For years the Major had longed for an ordinary colored boy who would maybe steal his liquor and leave dust under the rug, but who at any rate, by God, would not fiddle around with the piano and jabber in French. Susie's brother was a good boy; he played on a comb wrapped in toilet paper, got drunk, and cooked good cornbread. But at the same time the Major did not feel the satisfaction he had anticipated. He missed Anacleto in many ways and felt concerning him the most uncomfortable remorse.

  'You know I used to devil Anacleto by describing what I would do to him if I could get him into the service. You don't suppose the little rascal really believed me, do you? I was mostly kidding him but in a way it always seemed to me that if he would enlist it would be the best thing in the world for him.'

  The Captain was weary of the talk about Alison and Anacleto. It was a pity the nasty little Filipino hadn't been carried off by a heart attack also. The Captain was tired of almost everything around the house these days. The plain, heavy Southern meals that Leonora and Morris enjoyed were especially distasteful to him. The kitchen was filthy and Susie too slovenly for words. The Captain was a connoisseur of good food and a neat amateur chef. He appreciated the subtle cookery of New Orleans, and the delicate, balanced harmony of French food. Often in the old days he used to go into the kitchen when he was in the house alone and prepare for his own enjoyment some luscious tidbit. His favorite dish was fillet of beef a la Bearnaise. However, the Captain was a perfectionist and a crank; if the tournedos were too well done, or if the sauce got hot and curdled even the slightest bit he would take it all out to the back yard, dig a hole, and bury it. But now he had lost all appetite for food. This afternoon Leonora had gone to the movies and he sent Susie away. He had thought that he would like to cook something special. But in the midst of preparing a rissole he had suddenly lost all interest, left everything as it was, and walked out of the house.

  'I can imagine Anacleto on K.P.,' Leonora said.

  'Alison always thought I brought up the subject just to be cruel,' said the Major. 'But that wasn't so. Anacleto wouldn't have been happy in the army, no, but it might have made a man of him. Would have knocked all the nonsense out of him anyway. But what I mean is that in a way it always seemed to me terrible for a grown man twenty three years old to be dancing around to music and messing with water colors. In the army they would have run him ragged and he would have been miserable, but even that seems to me better than the other.'

  'You mean,' Captain Penderton said, 'that any fulfillment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness. In short, it is better, because it is morally honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?'

  'Why, you put it exactly right,' the Major said. 'Don't you agree with me?'

  'No,' said the Captain, after a short pause. With gruesome vividness the Captain suddenly looked into his soul and saw himself. For once he did not see himself as others saw him; there came to him a distorted doll like image, mean of countenance and grotesque in form. The Captain dwelt on this vision without compassion. He accepted it with neither alteration nor excuse. 'I don't agree,' he repeated absently.

  Major Langdon thought over this unexpected reply, but did not continue the conversation. He always found it difficult to follow up any one line of thought beyond the first, bare exposition. With a headshake he returned to his own bewildering affairs. 'Once I waked up just before daylight,' he said. 'I saw the lamp was on in her room and I went in. And there I found Anacleto sitting on the edge of the bed and they were both of them looking down and fooling with something. And what was it they were doing?' The Major pressed his blunt fingers against his eyeballs and shook his head again. 'Oh yes. They were dropping little things into a bowl of water. Some sort of Japanese mess Anacleto had bought at the ten cent store these little particles open like flowers in the water. And they were just sitting there at four o'clock in the morning trifling with that. It made me suddenly irritable, and when I stumbled over Alison's slippers by the side of the bed, I lost my temper and kicked them across the room. Alison was disgusted with me, cold as ice for days. And Anacleto put salt in the sugar bowl before he brought me my coffee. It was sad. Those nights she must have suffered.'

  'They giveth it and then they taketh it away,' said Leonora, whose intentions were better than her command of Scripture.

  Leonora herself had altered a little during the past weeks. She was approaching the phase of her full maturity. In this short time her body seemed to have lost some of its youthful muscularity. Her face was broader, and her expression in repose was one of lazy tenderness. She looked like a woman who has had several well born babies and who hopefully expects another in about eight months. Her complexion was still of a delicate, healthy texture, and although she was gradually putting on weight there was as yet no sign of flabbiness. She had been dismayed by the death of her lover's wife. The sight of the dead body in the coffin had so fascinated her that for several days after the funeral she had spoken in an awed whisper, even when ordering groceries at the Post Exchange. She treated the Major with a sort of vacant sweetness and repeated any happy anecdotes concerning Alison that she could remember.

  'By the way,' said the Captain suddenly, 'I can't stop wondering about that night when she came over here. What did she say to you in your room, Leonora?'

  'I told you I didn't even know she came. She didn't wake me up.'

  But on this subject Captain Penderton was still unsatisfied. The more he remembered the scene in his study, the stranger and more compelling it became to him. He did not doubt that Leonora told the truth, for whenever she lied it was instantly plain to everyone. But what had Alison meant and why on coming back home had he not gone upstairs to see? He felt he knew the answer somewhere in the shadowy unconscious of his mind. But the more he thought about this matter, the sharper was his uneasiness.

  'I remember one time when I was certainly surprised,' said Leonora, holding her pink, school girlish hands out to the fire. 'It was when we all drove up to North Carolina, the afternoon after we ate those good partridges at the house of that friend of yours, Morris. Alison and Anacleto and I were walking along this country road when a little boy came along leading this plow horse close kin to a mule, he was. But Alison liked the old plug's face and suddenly decided she wanted to ride him. So she made friends with the little Tarheel and then climbed up on a fence post and slipped on no saddle and wearing a dress. Think of it! I guess the horse hadn't been ridden for years and soon as she got on him he just lay down and started to roll her. And I thought to myself that that was the end of Alison Langdon and shut my eyes. But do you know she had got that horse up in a minute and was trotting a
round the field as though nothing at all had happened. You never could have done it, Weldon. And Anacleto was running up and down like a drunk jay bird. Lord, what a good time I never was so surprised!'

  Captain Penderton yawned, not because he was sleepy, but because Leonora's reference to his horsemanship had piqued him and he wanted to be discourteous. There had been some bitter scenes between the Captain and Leonora over Firebird. After the frenzied, runaway ride the horse had never been altogether the same, and Leonora blamed her husband vehemently. The events of the past two weeks, however, had served to deflect the course of their feud and the Captain was confident that soon she would forget.

  Major Langdon closed this particular evening's conversation with one of his favorite aphorisms: 'Only two things matter to me now to be a good animal and to serve my country. A healthy body and patriotism.'

  At this time Captain Penderton's home was not an ideal place for a person undergoing an acute psychic crisis. Formerly the Captain would have found the laments of Morris Langdon ridiculous. But now there was the atmosphere of death in the house. To him it seemed that not only had Alison died, but that in some mysterious way the lives of all three of them had come to a close. The old fear that Leonora might divorce him and go away with Morris Langdon did not trouble him any more. Any inclination he had once had toward the Major seemed now a mere velleity compared to his feelings for the soldier.